UMBRIA LETTER:The restoration of an 11th-century monastery has revealed the secrets of monastic life, writes PADDY AGNEW
ANYONE FAMILIAR with Italian banks – and more frequently Irish – has probably come across the unique double-door entrance. Basically, getting into a high street Italian bank can be a little like trying to enter Fort Knox.
First you press buttons to get one door opened. You enter a little cabin, the first door shuts behind you and, after a sometimes lengthy wait, the second door opens in front of you to let you into the bank proper.
Like everything else in Italy, this little routine has its roots in well tried custom and practice. If you do not believe me, just take a wander around La Preghiera, a restored 11th-century monastery in one of the most magical corners of Italy, on the Umbria-Tuscany border close to Citta di Castello.
Today La Preghiera is a distinctly upmarket country house of the sort that earns itself honourable mention in Alastair Sawday’s Special Places to stay in Italy. Just 12 years ago, this now staggeringly handsome building was a classic ruin, abandoned and six feet deep in hardened mud. Only a very brave (or foolhardy) person would have believed that it could be turned into a bijou country residence.
John Tunstill is such a person – brave, very competent and, as far as we can see, not at all foolhardy, given that he has successfully restored 60 ancient buildings in the area.
John and his wife Liliana had the Baroness and myself to stay recently and it was while he was giving us the official tour that the question of the modern-day double doors presented itself.
John and Liliana have not only restored this vast monastery, plus two adjacent churches, with exquisite taste but, in the process, as layers and layers of mud were removed, they have unearthed both the building’s complex history and the flavour of daily life in a mediaeval settlement.
And now the bank doors. Given that the monastery, believed to have been the home of the Olivetani, or brothers of the Mount of Olives order, looks like it functioned as a large community, complete with a hospital, people regularly came knocking at the door. Sometimes they were welcome and sometimes, especially late at night, you just could not be sure.
Thus it was that the night watchman, stationed beside the oven close to the outer barbican or defensive courtyard, had a system whereby he would let late arrivals in, two or three at a time, into a little lobby. By means of long-handled hooks, he would shut the first door behind the “guests” and then from the safety of his cubby-hole lodge, he would give them a careful once-over before eventually opening the second door.
Security seems to have been a matter of some urgency. There are “spy holes” in three different parts of the monastery, an indication that the monks kept a wary eye out for unannounced visitors. This part of central Italy witnessed no shortage of strife from mediaeval times through to the Renaissance, with armies regularly passing through on the way to and from Milan, Rome, Naples, Florence, Urbino etc.
Perhaps the most remarkable discovery concerns the numerous “levelling courses” John found in the make-up of the east wall of the original settlement house – a “levelling course” implies a building technique used by the Romans. That discovery, plus the unearthing of two 3rd- or 4th- century BC Roman coins during the digging, would make it seem almost certain that the ancient Romans were there long before the monks.
Not for the first time, the Christians merely moved on to the “pagan” site and commandeered it. This would explain how the monastery church was built on a north-south line rather than on the more usual east-west line. In all probability, like hundreds of churches in Rome and elsewhere, the church probably stands on the site of a Roman temple.
Digging out the six feet of mud, brought down by the spring rain from the surrounding hillsides after deforestation, was not without its dramatic moments.
The tonnes and tonnes of mud that had filled up all the area around the monastery had also begun to act as a buttress. Thus when John dug it away, he discovered that his 50cm thick south wall was actually resting on a much thinner supporting wall, from the which he had just taken away the comfort of mud support.
After a few hairy moments of threatened imminent collapse, a secure buttressing wall was whammed up against the supporting wall.
We are happy to report that these days it all looks very solid.
John’s restoration work also discovered much about daily monastic life, from how the monks made vin santo to how the nightwatchman kept a huge non- stop oven on the go to ensure that the monks had a warm bowl of gruel with which to break their fast when they arose for 4am prayers. You can still see the oven today.
La Preghiera is now a superbly appointed country hotel which also caters for weddings (see lapreghiera.com or weddings umbria.com) and villa rentals.
Anyone passing through the area should seriously consider a visit to Montone, an absurdly beautiful village that just happens to boost the superb Erba Luna restaurant (converted 16th- century stables, of course and the risotto is very, very good).
If you ever drop in on John, ask him to show you around his intriguing “war museum”, home to a huge collection of model soldiers and myriad first and second World War artefacts.
He has a lot of tales but, if you want something really worrying, get him going on the subject of gold bullion and tungsten bars. I am afraid that I will have to let him tell you that story himself.